Signature gathering to begin soon

August 19, 2008

We are fighting back! On Wednesday, August 13, MassResistance officially filed paperwork for a Referendum Petition - including the ten "original signers" - to force the Legislature's cowardly repeal of the "1913 Law" to be voted on by the people.

Muted coverage. The story broke on Saturday, after the AG's office mentioned it to the press. The media wasn't too thrilled.

As you know, in the final days of the 2008 session (which ended July 31) the Legislature repealed the "1913 Law", and the Governor signed it in a big State House ceremony surrounded by the gay lobby. This action will allow out-of-state gay couples to get "married" in Massachusetts - and then go back and cause legal havoc in their home states. It also further degrades our own marriage laws.

(It was done in a particularly cowardly and insidious way. The Senate passed it in a "voice vote" to avoid going on record. When the Legislature heard we were planning a Referendum Petition, they passed it again - adding special "emergency act" language to make it go into effect immediately, instead of the usual 90 days.)

What this Referendum means

This is a big deal. Besides eventually stopping a horrible social experiment from being forced across the country, this sends some very strong messages.

First, it's a statement that the people of Massachusetts aren't going to just sit back and take it. We're not going to let a small but powerful special interest be allowed to change our laws at will to push an offensive social experiment across the country. This is very important. They forced "gay marriage" on us through a radical judiciary and corrupt politicians. They think we're beaten. Well, we're not. Conversely, if we don't fight back now, they have the green light to do anything they want in the future.

Secondly, it shows the Legislature that we can do this in the future if we have to. We're not afraid to stand up to them.

And also, it shows the rest of the country that we're not going to allow the homosexual lobby to rule us.

Here's what happens now

Unlike with the Marriage Amendment, a vote of the people CANNOT be stopped by the Legislature if we get the signatures! We officially need 33,297 good signatures by approximately mid-October, but to be safe we really need to get 40,000 or more.)

According to law, before we can start collecting signatures the Attorney General's office must decide whether our request is legal and does not deal with "excluded matters." The AG also must draft a "fair and concise" summary of the law, for the petition sheets. They've already drafted the summary, and we've approved it. On the legality of our request, we cannot see any possible reason to deny it. But the AG's office told us "On all binding ballot questions, we generally ask potential opponents if they wish to submit legal arguments to us on excluded-matters issues." That's not mandated by any law, and so far we haven't heard anything, We want to make sure this isn't just a delaying tactic. Apparently this process sometimes takes up to two weeks. But plan to be on top of it. (We certainly know where AG Martha Coakley publicly stands on this: she hates pro-family folks and supports the homosexual movement.)

After the AG finishes with it, it takes a few more days for the Secretary of State to prepare the actual petition sheets. Then we start. We definitely want to get rolling before Labor Day!

As we've reported, at every step of the "1913 Law" repeal the Boston Globe did whatever it could to help it along. We kept seeing "news" stories about how wonderful this will be and how normal gay couples are, and an editorial demanding that the politicians "do the right thing" for "justice" and against "bigotry". It all seemed like part of the lobbying effort. (And the rest of the Boston media wasn't far behind, though not as blatant.)

But it didn't end after the vote. They want to make sure they're in our faces, so to speak.

On Sunday, August 3, right after the Governor signed the bill, the Boston Sunday Globe's published their lead editorial, titled Legislators who stepped up, and proudly listed all the House members who voted for the repeal. "The Globe would like to recognize the 119 House members who stood up for equal rights with their votes Tuesday," crowed their editorial.

Including -- an incredible, blatant lie. The editorial stated, "Opponents clearly misjudged the mood of the voters, who did not flood the State House with calls or protests."Actually, exactly the opposite was true. The Legislature, and particularly the House, received the biggest flood of protests from across Massachusetts and even around the country since the Marriage Amendment fight. By our count over 24,000 individual emails, etc, were sent to legislators during July, mostly in the House. And there were hundreds and hundreds of phone calls besides that. Although the homosexual lobby also encouraged their supporters to contact legislators, one state rep's office told us that the count was 6-1 in our favor. Just before the House vote, in his speech during the debate, pro-gay Rep. Byron Rushing said, "There has been a considerable amount of email saying this law was not passed because of concern about interracial marriage." This kind of shameful propaganda by the Globe is right from the playbook of Joseph Goebbels.

(At the State House right after the House vote, the Globe did ask us why no pro-family people came there to hold signs, etc. The answer is simple, we told them. It wasn't announced until about an hour before that the vote would be taking place. We just found out in the nick of time to get there.)

And there's more, of course.

In the August 18 paper, just for good measure, the Globe's op-ed page was graced with this gem: "A new wedding boom awaits."

"WHILE MUCH of the country remains to be sold on the concept of same-sex marriage, the atmosphere in Provincetown is positively giddy as it braces for what is expected to be another wave of nouveau nuptials. . . ."